AMA with Bryana Kortendick: Enjin is developing a new token standard for cross-chain NFTs on Polkadot
In today's AMA, we hosted Bryana Kortendick, who is the Head of Ecosystem Communications in Enjin.
Hello Bryana, thanks for joining our interview. First, let us congratulate you on winning the 6th parachain slot auction on Polkadot, great work! Were there any changes to the Efinity roadmap since you have closely lost in the 1st batch with Clover? Or were you prepared for both situations — winning a slot in the first batch and in the second batch?
Thank you for the opportunity!
Winning a slot in Batch 2 means that Efinity was onboarded to the Polkadot network on March 11, so our roadmap has shifted slightly based on this in terms of launch timeline. However, our developers have continued working diligently on Efinity and its features, and we’ve released core NFT functionality upon launch. Beta access to develop on Efinity via the Enjin Platform will be rolled out in waves to our early adopters starting in the next month, with a public release to follow.
Most of our readers probably know that you are the authors of the Enjin project. Can you tell us more about it? Can you name any achievements or practical NFT applications you have already done with Enjin?
Enjin helped kickstart the NFT movement on Ethereum. In 2017, our CTO Witek Radomski wrote the code for one of the first-ever NFTs, and we began building an end-to-end blockchain product ecosystem to make it easy for anyone to mint, integrate, distribute, and manage their digital assets — at the time, we called them “custom coins.” Witek is also the author of ERC-1155, the advanced Ethereum NFT standard that is now widely used today.
Our tech stack has been used by leading global brands such as Microsoft, Samsung, and Atari, as well as crypto market leaders like Binance, CoinMarketCap, and SwissBorg, to engage and grow their audiences. Over 100 game and app developers are also using Enjin to create and integrate NFTs in innovative ways, from open-world RPGs and Minecraft servers, to collectible card games and augmented reality apps.
What are the main differences between Enjin and Efinity? Will they compete or cooperate together?
Enjin is the company/team behind Efinity, and has an existing product ecosystem for creating, integrating, and trading NFTs. This ecosystem was originally built on Ethereum; as we expand cross-chain, Efinity will also be integrated into each of those products. Every developer in the Enjin ecosystem will be able to take advantage of Efinity for their integrations using our open platform, API, and SDKs.
When it comes to our 2 tokens, Enjin Coin (ENJ) and Efinity Token (EFI) will each serve a core purpose in this multi-chain ecosystem, designed to work in unison.
EFI is Efinity’s native token, designed to pay for transaction fees and facilitate liquidity, community rewards, and governance on Efinity. ENJ will be used to nominate Efinity collator nodes — by staking ENJ, users can nominate the most efficient and stable nodes that run Efinity and earn EFI rewards for their participation.
Why did you choose the Polkadot ecosystem and implement your NFT solution as a parachain on top of it?
Over time, the scope and tech for Efinity expanded to meet the needs of the evolving NFT space, which is hindered by fees, inflexible smart contracts, fragmentation, and poor user experience.
Polkadot is not built to replace Ethereum, but to improve and complement it; in the same way, Efinity is designed to supercharge NFTs from any blockchain.
As a parachain on Polkadot, Efinity will enable a variety of powerful new NFT features, flexibility, scalability, and cross-chain interoperability that aren’t possible on general-purpose networks like Ethereum.
The brilliant design of Polkadot allows us to create an economy that’s geared toward NFTs and brings value to that audience specifically. Efinity will also benefit from the security of the Polkadot Relay Chain, so we can focus on building a tight, scalable network and economy.
We are building Efinity to resolve every friction-point that users and developers are hitting, and provide the infrastructure the NFT space needs to grow at scale.
Can you tell us more about the unique features offered by Efinity? One of the most interesting ones is definitely the Fuel tank.
In addition to supporting cross-chain NFTs, Efinity has some powerful features that will enable a vastly improved, simplified user experience:
- Fuel Tanks: Will allow developers to subsidize transaction costs for their users and users by depositing EFI tokens to a Fuel Tank they control. That way, players will not need to worry about obtaining crypto or paying blockchain fees.
- Discrete Accounts: Like a virtual cloud wallet on Efinity, which will allow players to jump into NFT games without creating a blockchain wallet. They can receive assets to the discrete account, and then claim it and have full ownership over the inventory at any time.
You can learn more about some of the key Efinity features in this video.
Unlike most of the projects, you have decided to skip becoming a Kusama parachain first and headed straight towards the Polkadot parachain slot. Do you think that a canary network is not necessary for the Efinity?
We launched Efinity on the Rococo test network prior to onboarding to Polkadot.
Can you tell us something about your JumpNet? When did you develop it and what is the main purpose of JumpNet?
Following DeFi summer, many of our developers faced issues and delays with their integrations due to the sheer costs on Ethereum. We saw this as an opportunity to innovate and expand our solutions to ensure our partners could continue building before Efinity was ready.
JumpNet was our immediate solution to the persistent issue of gas fees and congestion on Ethereum; it’s a gas-free, carbon-negative EVM chain that allows our adopters and users to transact without fees or delays.
We released JumpNet earlier in 2021, with early access for our partners in April, and public access in June).
What type of interoperability will be between Enjin’s Ethereum-based platform, Jumpnet and Efinity? Is JumpNet some kind of a middle-step between Enjin and Efinity?
Two-way bridges between JumpNet, Ethereum, Efinity, and third-party chains (like BSC, Flow) will enable users to easily mint and port tokens onto multiple networks without worrying about high gas fees.
Some projects like Microsoft’s Azure Heroes will continue using JumpNet long-term for their NFTs; other developers with more complex NFT integrations like MyMetaverse plan to utilize JumpNet as a test network (similar to Kovan) before bridging to Efinity.
Is there going to be staking on the Efinity parachain? What tokens will be supported? Also, we have heard that you will be even able to stake NFTs which is quite innovative, how is it going to work?
Yes, as previously mentioned, Efinity’s parachain will bring a new utility to the ENJ token. Anyone can stake their ENJ to participate in Efinity collator node selection, and they’ll be able to do this with just a click in their Enjin Wallet.
Similarly, all NFTs infused with ENJ will be automatically staked for collator node nomination, earning EFI rewards for anyone who holds those tokens. A node will be automatically selected for these staked NFTs, but the user can of course always change the node they wish to select.
Your CTO Witek is the creator of the ERC-1155 token standard on Ethereum. Why did you decide to create a new token standard for Polkadot, and is it comparable to the ERC-1155 on Polkadot?
Our goal has always been to help accelerate the advent of a global, advanced virtual economy. ERC-1155 was the start of this, born from the growing need for a more efficient standard to govern the evolved token types and economies of blockchain games and dApps.
ERC-1155 enables developers to deploy both fungible and non-fungible tokens in a single smart contract — and cuts gas fees by up to 90% when minting new tokens.
We’re now developing a token standard for cross-chain NFTs on Polkadot. It will be compatible with parachains, parathreads, and smart contracts, so it’s interoperable with the entire Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem. It will accept tokens from any other chain, including the popular ERC-721, ERC-1155, and ERC-20 standards.
Enjin created a $100 mil. fund for developers to incentivize them for building the Metaverse on Efinity. Do you already have contributors and do you think this is the ideal time for developers to start working on Efinity? How can you join as a developer now?
Our $100M fund is live and has already been used to support projects like Kingdom Karnage and Forest Knight.
Developers interested in building with Enjin / Efinity can get started immediately on our Ecosystem page, where they can find links to check out our documentation, join our Discord community, apply for funding, and submit their project to be showcased on our website/social channels.
Thank you for your answers, it was amazing to talk to you about Efinity and Enjin. We wish you great success with the launch of the first NFT parachain on Polkadot!
If you want to know even more about Efinity, go check out our previous article
If you like this article, consider supporting us by nominating your tokens to our Kusama or Polkadot validator going by the POLKADOTTERS name.
